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Perrigrine Sessions (1814-1893)
}} Biography Pioneer Wagon Companies In 1847, Daniel Spencer (1794-1868) (future president of Salt Lake Stake) and Perrigrine Sessions (future president of Davis County Stake) jointly led one of the very first Mormon pioneer wagon companies west to the Great Salt Lake. 185 individuals and 75 wagons were in the company when it began its journey from the outfitting post on the Elkhorn River about 27 miles west of Winter Quarters, Nebraska. Left June 1847 and arrived 24-25 Sept 1847 in the Salt Lake Valley. * Perrigrine Sessions Wagon Company - LDS History Overland Travel * Mormon Pioneer Overland Travel, Daniel Spencer/Perrigrine Sessions Company (1847) * Mormon Pioneer Overland Travel, Perrigrine Sessions Company (1854) * Mormon Pioneer Overland Travel, Perrigrine Sessions Company (1857) Marriage and Family Father of Fifty-Five Children. 2nd Marriage : Lucina Call Perrigine married on the same day 28 June 1845 in the Nauvoo Temple to sisters Lucina Call and Mary Call. References O Whitney: History of Utah Orson F. Whitney, History of Utah, Vol. 4, p. 102 Perrigrine Sessions was a native of Newry, Oxford county, State of Maine, and was born June 15, 1814. His parents were David and Patty Sessions; the father a well-to-do farmer and stock raiser, possessing also a grist-mill, a saw-mill and other machinery. The son received a good education, but spent all the years of his boyhood and early manhood upon the home farm, which he seldom left except to market products, which had to be taken to Portland, sixty miles away. He was a natural farmer and stock raiser, and these pursuits, with milling, completely occupied his time. He lived with his father until the latter's death in 1849, and was always his partner in business, the two holding their property in common. Just when the Sessions family became connected with Mormonism, the writer of this sketch is not informed. They left the State of Maine in June, 1837, and journeyed by way of the intervening States and Lake Erie to Kirtland, Ohio, where they joined the main body of their co-religionists. Perrigrine Sessions was then a married man, having wedded Julia Killgore September 31, 1834. A few years later the family took up their residence at Nauvoo, Illinois, where they remained until the exodus. Mr. Sessions was a member of the Nauvoo police force, and one of the body guard of the Prophet Joseph Smith. From Winter Quarters, on the Missouri River, he and his family crossed the plains to Salt Lake valley in the emigration of 1847. Four days after his arrival at the Pioneer settlement, Perrigrine Sessions moved his wagons northward about ten miles, and camped upon the spot where sprang up Sessions' Settlement, since called Bountiful. There he located permanently, and was the first settler of the section now comprised in Davis county. When Johnston's army invaded Utah in 1857–8, the Sessions family went south as far as American Fork, taking with them twenty-eight wagon loads of provisions and utensils; but after peace was declared they returned to their home in the north. Mr. Sessions continued in farming and stock raising, and also engaged in the milling business with President Heber C. Kimball. Later he took stock in the Bountiful and Brigham City Co-operative institutions, and was also interested in Z. C. M. I. at Salt Lake City. From 1871 to 1877 he was the postmaster at Bountiful. Perrigrine Sessions was counselor to the first Bishop of North Canyon Ward—the first ward organization in his neighborhood—and held that position until the ward was re-organized under its new name Bountiful. Subsequently he was President of the High Priests' Quorum of Davis Stake for a number of years. Prior to that he held the office of a Seventy, to which he was ordained at Kirtland in 1837. His missionary record is as follows: In 1839–40 he went upon a mission to Maine, and again visited that State as a missionary in 1841–2. From September, 1852, until August, 1854, he was on a mission to England, and in 1856–7 was colonizing with a portion of his family in Carson valley, then in Utah, but now in Nevada. In 1868 he again visited his native State, but returned home sick the year following. In 1870 he went to Maine to gather genealogical information, and in 1877–8 was there on a mission, in company with Elders William I. Atkinson and Judson Tolman. In the building of temples, churches, school houses, and in the immigration and support of the poor, Perrigrine Sessions played his part. He was industrious, frugal and thrifty, and gathered around him considerable property. He had a large family—nine wives and fifty-two children—thirty-eight of the latter living at last accounts, and at his death he left to each of his wives a comfortable home, with ample means to support and educate his children. He died at East Bountiful June 3, 1893. Obituary 1893 Utah Digital Collection, Davis County Clipper, 8 June 1893, Last of the Three Pioneers of Bountiful Passes Away--Crossed the Plains Six Times. Fifteen Years Devoted to Missionary Labors, Traveling over 50,000 Miles--Father of Fifty-Five Children. Peregrine Sessions, last of the three pioneer settlers of Bountiful, passed away of old age last Saturday, June 3, 1893, after an illness of many months. Peregrine was the son of David and Patty Sessions, the oldest of a family of eight children, and born June 15, 1814, in Newry, Oxford Co., Maine. His early life was spent working on a farm of 400 acres with his father, attending the district school during winter. Sept. 21, 1834 he married Julia Ann Kilgore of Newry, Maine. Was baptized into the church by the first bishop Partridge on the 17th of Sept. 1834. June 5th, 1837, he and his family started for Kirtland here they arrived in November of the same year. Later the family moved to Far West with the Saints and after the family's arrival there he made a trip to Maine to attend to some business. Feb. 18th, 1839, he was ordained a Seventy by Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball, and on the 17th, of June of that year he went on his first mission, which was to the state of Maine, being absent from home until June 14th of the following year. In April 1842, he started on his second mission to Maine arriving home again in June 1844. He served as Joseph's and Brigham's body guard for three years. Lost his first wife, Jan. 5, 1845. Left Far West and moved to Nauvoo and in Feb. 1846, left the last named city for Winter Quarters, finding his father and mother in Council Bluffs. He built a log house in Winter Quarters, and during the winger made a trip back to Missouri after provisions; also went out on several hunting expeditions to supply the camp with meat and honey which he was very successful in getting. June 5th, 1846 a traveling outfit was secured and the great journey across the plains commenced; in the way of provisions, three hundred pounds of flour was allowed each individual. There were 600 wagons in the entire train, the first eighty-seven being in his charge. P. G. Sessions and P. P. Pratt traveled ahead of the company to select camping places, suitable place to ford rivers, etc. He arrived in the valley of the great Salt Lake on the 25th of Sept. of the same year. He made the first wagon track north of the Hot Springs, locating in Bountiful the same fall of of his arrival. The following spring (1848) he sowed seven acres of wheat and planted fourteen acres of corn, but later that year, for about seven weeks, the crickets threatened their crops, but still they had a good harvest; wheat being as high as $10 per bushel. This year he built the first house that was ever erected in this town, which was later named after him. On Oct. 15gh 1848, started back east after his sister Sylva, returning to Utah on the 26 of June 1850 with a company of 149 mean and were on their way to California to hunt gold. These miners left considerable money with him for provisions which they bought to supply them on their journey, flour then being $50 per cwt. In 1851, he built his large adobe house (57x57). Sept. 1852, left on a mission to England, returning three years later. The year of fifty-seven was spent in Nevada on a mission. In sixty-nine and seventy-two he sent to Maine doing missionary work and gathering genealogies. Much of the latter part of his life was spent in laboring in the temples for the dead and much means was used for that purpose. Six wives and forty-one children are left to mourn his loss; two wives and fourteen children having preceded him. Funeral Services. Funeral services were held in the Tabernacle on Tuesday, June 6th, where an unusually large audience, composed of old and young, assembled to show their last respects to the highly esteemed pioneer and leader. David Stoker, E. B. Tripp, Apostle John Henry Smith and Prest. Joseph F. Smith were the speakers.